One side of the highway, the waterless hills.
The other, in the distance, the tidal wastes,
estuaries, bay, throat
of the ocean. I had not put it into
words, yet – the worst thing,
but I thought that I could say it, if I said it
word by word. My friend was driving,
sea-level, coastal hills, valley,
foothills, mountains – the slope, for both,
of our earliest years. I had been saying
that it hardly mattered to me now, the pain,
what I minded was – say there was
a god – of love – and I’d given – I had meant
to give – my life – to it – and I
had failed, well I could just suffer for that
but what, if I,
had harmed, love? I howled this out,
and on my glasses the salt water pooled, almost
sweet to me, then, because it was named,
the worst thing – and once it was named,
I knew there was no god, there were only
people. And my friend reached over,
to where my fists clutched each other,
and the back of his hand rubbed them, a second,
with clumsiness, with the courtesy
of no eros, the homemade kindness.